Page 7 of Red Dreams

She steps back, orbiting around me while I’m seated in the middle of my luxurious prison, my bare legs curled under me and my wrists freshly zip-tied. It’s freezing, and my nipples are peaked under my tangle of hair, but I lost my modesty a while ago.

Cassie leans down until I’m staring into the inky-blue pools of her eyes. “Did Daddy also share how he likes to break pretty things? How he savors the sound of bones snapping beneath his hands?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, willing myself to stay present, not to get lost in Cassie’s dark truth. “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”

She pulls back, studying me with a tilt of her head. “I want you to understand. To feel what I felt. To know the exquisite agony of being unmade and reforged in the image of a monster.”

I search her face, trying to find a glimmer of the broken girl beneath this hellish creature. The cool air of the room feels heavy in my lungs.

“Cassie, I know what it feels like to feel betrayed by someone you trusted. But this—what you’re doing—it won’t change the past. It won’t heal your pain.”

Cassie’s lip curls. “Healing is for the weak. I’ve embraced my scars and turned them into armor.”

She turns away from me and paces the small room, her heels snapping like jaws against the floor. I watch her fluid movements closely, aware that at any moment, she could pivot and slap me senseless. Cassie is always impeccably dressed in long black gowns, short black cocktail dresses, or tight black bodysuits when she visits me. Her hair, the same color, is always down, cascading in waves nearly to her waist. The only color to her is her eyes—and the slash of red lipstick, brighter and cheerier than blood, yet somehow more sinister.

“What did he promise you?” she asks suddenly, turning to face me again. “How did he convince you that you were special?”

Cassie’s words strike deep, unearthing memories I've fought to bury. Kaden lying beside me, his presence a comforting shield against the terrible world I’d found myself in. His touch was both commanding and gentle. He cared; I know he did. When he cooked me breakfast as the sun rose, the room filling with the aroma of sizzling bacon and freshly brewed coffee, I pictured it lasting forever.

I frown.

Is that what I thought? That on the other side of this, we’d make a home together, chat over coffee in the kitchen, and cuddle in front of the fire at night? Some of his last words to me were:This isn’t some sort of romantic adventure. I’m a killer, same as the men who broke in tonight to kill you. I was initially hired tomurderyou.

“Kaden promised nothing,” I finally reply. “I never needed him to.”

Cassie’s smile falls.

“You’re a good liar,” she acknowledges quietly. “But not good enough. I know exactly the kind of promises men like my father make. The kind that drips with honey and leaves you tasting your own blood at the end.”

She reaches out, tracing a sharp nail along the curve of my jaw. I recoil but force myself to maintain eye contact.

“Did he whisper sweet nothings in your ear as he took you apart piece by piece? Did he make you feel cherished, adored, like the center of his twisted universe?” Cassie's voice is low and taunting. “I bet he did. Just like he did with my mother. Just like he did with every other woman foolish enough to fall for his charms.”

Cassie's words should bite deeper than they do, but something in her tone makes me pause. There's an undertone of... curiosity? No. This is hungrier. Like she's probing for confirmation of a theory she's crafted about her father, not the truth of him.

“Tell me about these other women,” I say carefully.

Her perfectly shaped brows lift. “Trying to be better than your competition?”

“No. Trying to understand.”

“Understand what? How my father seduced and destroyed every woman he touched?” Her lip curls. “Or are you special? Different because of your spooky eyes? The one who'llsavehim?”

I don’t respond. Any sort of reaction feels like stepping into a trap.

Cassie's hand returns to my face, this time gripping my jaw. “You want to understand? Fine. Let's start with my mother. Dear, sweet Angie Shaw, the war correspondent who thought she could tame the dangerous man. Sound familiar?”

She forces my chin up, her nails digging into my cheeks and reopening the scratches there. “He drew her in with thattortured look of his, didn't he? Made her feel safe even while setting off every warning bell. Protected her, cherished her, until she was drunk on his darkness.”

“But Angie walked away,” I say through gritted teeth. “She made her choice.”

“Oh, you think that's what happened?” Cassie's laugh is sharp enough to draw more blood from my cheek. “You think she justleft? Moved on to her war stories and forgot all about us?”

She releases my jaw, roughly pushing my head to the side, and straightens, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her skintight outfit. “Would you like to hear her voice?”

It takes a minute to process what she just said. “What?”

Cassie glides to an elegant side table and picks up her phone. Her black fingernail hovers over the screen. “Daddy kept all her messages. The ones she left after she realized what kind of man he truly was. After she started seeing danger in every corner of our house.”

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